Glad this is about over with. Saturday it’s going to be 40 here and Sunday I’m going to cut scions at a comfortable 49-51 degrees all day and all thru the night.
Dax
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I went out to plow the wind blown snow off the driveway and found my plow truck battery dead. I had used it yesterday and it seemed fine. Hooked up the charger and it started to bubble…it’s frozen 
Time for a new battery. I’ve got a trickle charger on the “every day” pickup. I guess I’ll be picking up another trickle charger to go with the new battery.
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Do you use a block heater? I swear by those things. About $30 for the last one i bought and it just threads into the frost plug int he block of the motor.
GFs has what looks to be mid 40Fs and rain by Monday. This will be a mess if/when it comes.
School cancelled tomorrow…4 days straight.
I almost feel guilty residing in an area where we have yet to see a hard frost this year, and probably won’t see one either.
Nope, no block heater. The battery is 6 years old and must not have gotten fully charged the last time I ran the truck.
The last I saw, one local school district has a 2 hour delay tomorrow morning. I think that’s what most schools will do here. The low tonight is forecast to be -35, but it’s supposed to get to -6 tomorrow and no crazy wind.
The long range forecast I looked at last night has us back to the minus teens and twenties next week with below zero highs. Saturday and Sunday are in the low 30s though. Bust out the shorts and tank tops 
Don’t feel guilty on my account. I chose to live here and could move (and may) whenever I want. Central MN is full of the nicest people you could ever meet and is a beautiful place to live…for about half the year 
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Chicagoans are very much enjoying this rare opportunity of the temperature colder than South Pole and turned it into creative water art festival:scream:
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Regarding my blackberry canes, the PA Freedom and Traveler are rated to zone 6, and I think my Osage and Ouachita are rated to z6 as well, so these temps will be pushing the envelope for sure.
Zone 6a is -10 to -5, and z6b is -5 to 0, so we’re in the danger zone. I know the wind chill today has been well below that so does that mean that is more relevant or is it the ambient temp?
The Triple Crowns are rated to z5, so they should be OK, but I’m more worried about the deer (or rabbits) gnawing on the canes. Found about a 6ft cane today chewed off. 
My wife and I made our predictions for tonight, it’s 9 at 6pm. She’s saying -1, I’m looking at -5 because it’s mostly clear with no wind and a bit of snow cover. Loser has to jump in the pond.
Hah, just kidding…
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We got out and went down to the local general store this afternoon to get out for a spell and have a lunch snack. It was nice to sit in the dining room where a wood stove was going, giving off a warm, cozy ambience.
Anyway, on the way home, there many winter scenes along the country road that made for some nice pictures:
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I remember that. Although I loathe the cold it sure is amazing and beautiful when the world around you freezes in place! What an incredible display from nature…
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Yeah, I was reminded on how cold it was after not wearing a glove for about 10 minutes taking these pics. I hate the cold too, but these were worth stopping for, a couple miles from the house. The frozen creek looked like a skating rink, but not enough to walk on.
No school for tomorrow, 6° now.
I just got some weird govt amber alert deal on my phone telling me because of extreme cold temps to turn my heat down to 65. 
I don’t remember them cutting my wood for me, 73 degrees in my house it stays…
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Where do you live? Who was the alert from?
Yikes! I was telling my sixth grade class all about the incredibly low temps some of you were having, and we watched a Russian video with the boiling water trick (we study heat, weather and phases of matter). I lived in upstate NY, and have tried to tell them about the frigid wet cold, but I don’t think they quite get it. We have dry cold, so our snow is very powdery and the cold isn’t nearly as bitter.
We have only ever canceled school once in the 13 years I’ve been teaching, and that was due to the aftermath of high winds. The bus fleet had its windows blown out, and then we had to make it up during spring break.
We had a high of 42, and a low of 22 today, but our inversion is back and the air quality is getting bad again.
It came on my iphone ‘special government alert…i live in mason county Mi.
No alert here - but then we already keep our temps about that
Some utility companies here have had to shut down electricity for a few hours and some communities ran out of natural gas. Our electricity to our heat source was shut down from 4:30 - 9:30 p.m. the last two nights. Not a major deal as the shutoff was to our infloor heat. The floors dropped a couple degrees during that time span. The folks who got screwed out of natural gas I feel really bad for. Supposedly the supply was too low and they were bypassed so that other communities “down flow” could get gas. I smell a lawsuit
We bottomed out at -35 a bit ago. That’s enough of that
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Our utility bills are going to be stratospheric!
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-33F here… Some stations to the east stopped reporting at -38F…equipment failure or did the gauges not go down cold enough? no idea…
A guy I know lives southeast of me about 35 minutes. His vehicle thermometer showed -40 this morning